Tua’s 4 Turnovers Prevent Miami from Beating Houston

The Miami Dolphins 2024 season, for all real purposes, ended Sunday in Houston with a 20 to 12 loss to the Texans. It was a rough day all around, but for the $235 million quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, his four turnovers (3 interceptions and one fumble) killed all hope of Miami winning this game.

And the streak now extends to 25 seasons since the Miami Dolphins have last won a playoff game.

After a miserable performance against the New York Jets last week, Miami’s defense held CJ Stroud to only 131 yards passing and Joe Mixon to 1.9 yards per carry and only 23 rushing yards. However, Miami’s special teams committed penalties and gave up a fake punt, and the offense was just awful on the day.

Led by team captain and starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who had three interceptions and one fumble, which led to most of Houston’s points.

Tua, Mike McDaniel, Frank Smith, and many key Dolphins players have spoken about killing narratives, and the Dolphins, with another golden opportunity today, failed to deliver.

Tua twice, late in the 4th quarter, had the ball with Miami down 8, once with 4 minutes left, and once with just under 2 minutes left, but he failed to lead the offense or get them in a position to tie up the game.

Instead, he threw a game-ending interception for Houston to seal the win. While some fans want to blame Tyreek Hill for that interception, it is nitpicking because Tua had three turnovers before that play, and at the end of the day, that interception will go down in the record book for Tua.

For the Dolphins to end these narratives in 2025 and 2026, they will need better quarterback play in big games and in December. You cannot pay your quarterback what Miami is paying Tua for him to come up small in big moments.

Even last week vs the Jets, a must-win game for Miami, everyone will remember the final drive of the game and the overtime possession, but for the rest of that game, Tua’s offense was 1 of 9 on 3rd down and looked sloppy.

People will point out his performance against the Bills in Orchard Park in October as a good game, yet Miami lost. Okay, that’s great, but they still lost. And for a guy who has been in the league since 2020, those little moral victories don’t cut it anymore.

Houston didn’t bring their “A” game today and really didn’t play well. They just sat back and let Tua make mistakes, and they capitalized on them.

This game was there for the taking, and yes, Miami was down to their backup offensive tackles, and they lost two wide receivers in the game, but a $232 million quarterback needs every now and then to overcome that and drag the team to victory.

Instead, our $232 million quarterback turned it over four times, ending Miami’s hopes of making the playoffs.

The fans who are in the “Cult of Tua” will continue to drink the Kool-Aid and make excuses for him, while the rest of normal Dolphins fans will be frustrated with another season of no playoff victories.

On to 2025…